I decided that for the next couple days or so, I'd stay away from the park and the softball fields. Keep the low pro. I needed to isolate myself from Glory--and her mom, too. I mean, I couldn't believe how ready they were to invade my life. Besides, I had to stay focused on my summer mission--my musical career.
So, once I rolled out of bed around ten or eleven each morning, I'd grab my skateboard, sling my horn around my neck, and head west--away from OB Juan's--looking for music.
Some people play music by ear, but, me, I'd rather use my eyes. What I mean is, I'd skate along easy, cool, watching the street scene roll by. But I'd be scoping, scanning for rhythms, for a crow's hop, a dog's walk, slipping in eight, nine notes in a four-beat measure. I'd get in sync or syncopate, do whatever it takes.
I'd be like a tagger, a spray can artist, like some muralist. I'd spray music out my horn, and it would cover people, cars, birds and busses, bikers, dogs and trashcan cats--anything that caught my eye--as I skated on by, cool and easy.
Today around noon, I cruised down Bacon Street, aiming for Newport, the main drag through town, looking for something to play. Almost all of the old-school diners and coffee shops were on Newport, along with banks, bars, and tattoo parlors, thrift, surf, and antique shops, fast food, slow food, and Hodad's, where the sign on the wall read "Under 99 Billion Sold," referring to the fattest, juiciest hamburgers I'd ever tasted.
"Bro!" called Freeman, who was sweeping the sidewalk in front of his hole-in-the-wall smoothie shop called Elysian Fields. "Rattle me something."
That's what I wanted! I gave Freeman a greeting blast. He wrote all the good news for the OB Rag, so I caught his broomstrokes with a little "I Feel Good" James Brown--Bop da-liddle-lit, Bop da-liddle-lit--as I rolled on by.
That woke the whole street up. My mom leaned out of the sidewalk window at Hodad's--balancing a tray of hamburgers and silver metal malt shakers behind her--and yelled, "Andrés! Where's your helmet?"
I slowed down and hit my forehead with the heel of my hand, nearly knocking off my hat--a midnight-blue, thrift-store fedora--as if I'd completely forgotten to wear a helmet instead. Mom was cool--believe me, we had no major issues--except that she could be a real mother hen. Of course, we actually had a flock of baby chicks and chickens in the backyard at home, so maybe she caught it from them.
Anyway, I slowly brought my drive leg up, then in a flash I lowered it, pushing off and zooming past, while playing a few bars of a Mexican love song to her and all the people in the window seats munching on onion rings.
I jumped the curb and rolled across Abbott Street, where I spotted the Holy Jokester sitting cross-legged, yoga style on the concrete seawall. He was an old Rasta surfer with black dreads, a big, blue star tattooed all around his left eye, and a permanent crimson smile curling up from the corners of his mouth.
"Drace!" he called, which was his name for me--short for Andrés. "I understand you're the magic man."
I skated up. "What? What do you mean?" HoJo always had some weird thing to say.
He peered out from under his dreadlocked bangs, which shaded his eyes. "I understand you have the magic touch with that softball player--Marlina's little girl."
I crashed my board into the wall, then hopped up next to him, sitting sideways. "How do you know about that? Do other people know?"
He pointed to his cheekbone, where the blue star began. "The night has a thousand eyes."
"But that happened during daytime."
"Okay, I'm busted, Mr. Trusted. The girl, Glory, she told me, mon. She said your music brain-warped her rhythm-ology. Made her hit like Venus Williams smashing tennis balls crosscourt. What's the headline?"
"Glory said, 'brain-warp' and 'rhythm-ology'?"
"My words, Drace. Don't dance, mon."
"I'm not dancing. I'll answer, but first, man, give me some time to be amazed. I didn't know I warped her." I paused, conjuring Glory in my mind and wondered if warping her brain would actually make her more normal. "She wasn't looking for me or anything, was she?"
"She was looking for the truth, Baby Ruth, like we all are, eh? Give me your version."
"Okay, it was no big deal. You know how I play stuff. She was moving and I was grooving--you know, catching every little thing she did. I guess it made her relax or something and hit the ball better."
"And you, Dracemon? What effect?"
"A strange one, now that you ask. I was definitely tripping into the zone of the unknown."
He dipped his head and fell silent, then spoke to the sandy sidewalk. "Sounds like the freedom zone." He waved his hands like he was swatting bugs away from his face. "That's all for now, mon. But I advise you not to leave town, just in case we got a notta question in your direction."
"Yeah, yeah, okay." I stood, laughing, and stepped on my board. The Holy Jokester liked to use the royal "we," as if he spoke for a great number of people. And maybe he did--I wouldn't doubt it--but they were all invisible. "I don't plan on going anywhere." I pushed off.
"Wait!" he called. "You know the routine."
I stopped.
He lowered his voice. "We never had this conversation."
"Oh, yeah." I looked at him and raised my palms. "What conversation?"
He closed his right eye. "You're free to go."
He always said that. "You're free to go." Yeah, sure. Right after he tells me not to leave town. Dude was wack. But I did get some of my best song lines from him. For being a frazzled old guy, HoJo was still pretty quick with the wit.
Rolling south along the seawall I watched a surfer shoot the pier, riding a nice south break through the thick pier pilings and out the other side. I painted every turn.
Under the stairway leading up to the pier, I spied a little old man with a black hat sitting on the seawall, leaning on his cane. I'd never noticed him around here before. In OB, people come and go all the time. Right on Newport there's a two-story International Youth Hostel which was always filled with foreigners. Probably where this guy came from. Wearing an old-fashioned black suit, white shirt, and a bright red-ribbon tie, he immediately made me think of Grandpa Ramos. Old country, old school.
That's a common thing I do--thinking about my grandfather. Or talking to him. Sometimes I'd skate along this wall and--I don't advertise this--but sometimes I'd talk to him as if he were sitting right there.
"Mijo," I would imagine him saying, "You need to build your passion, so your heart is pure and your purpose is one of honor. You must immerse yourself."
"I am, Grandpa," I'd answer. "Music is all I ever think about."
And he'd say something like, "Did I ever tell you about Wynton Marsalis? At your age?"
"A hundred times."
"Okay, amigo. But when will you hear me?"
"I do hear you. But my dreams are bigger than his were. I want to invent a whole new sound."
I mumble the last part out loud, as I rode past the man in black, and he glanced my way. "Howzit?" I said.
He didn't answer, and I didn't expect him to.
I rolled into the beach parking lot, hearing Grandpa telling me to remember my roots.
Well, I thought, don't worry. I remember my roots, all right, but I also knew that Mom was still waiting tables at Hodad's, and Dad still ran his little music studio in a back alley behind this old, retro, hippie headshop called "The Black," and they only played out one or two nights a week.
"I've got plans to go a lot farther than that, Grandpa."
"Plans are talk, mijo. Dreams are talk. Action is what counts. Ación."
"I know, Abuelito. This summer is my 'breakout summer.' You watch. I'm going to start my climb up the musical tree. And I'll swing on every branch until some day I reach the top." And I meant it.
Because, to me, it was so much more than talk. When I looked back through all that smoke in all those clubs, past all those blurry-eyed, old-school musicians, the losers, the cruisers and boozers, who got chewed up, churned out, used up, and burned out, including my own mom and dad, I saw one thing.
I saw what it takes. And that's why I'd made my decision. I, Andrés Gilbert Ramos, was on a mission--to become a world-class trumpeteer.
I skated through the asphalt lot, past the cop trailer, and headed for the alley. "How's that sound, Abuelito?" I asked him in my mind.
"Muy bueno," I heard him say, as I cruised toward my dad's studio, "but I only wish I could've taught you what you need to know, mijo."
"Wishes are plans," I answered, teasing him. "I need ación." Of course, there was no answer to that. What was I thinking? The action was up to me.
At Dad's music studio, there was always work for me to do. I answered the phone, I booked bands, checked e-mail, helped bands set up when they arrived. I cleaned up, I recorded the sessions, even made the coffee. Anything to earn a few dollars and learn all I could about making music.
When I wasn't working, I'd still check in with Dad, to see if he had any vacant hours on the schedule. Whenever he did, I'd call up Tran and Lil Lobo, and we'd go in there and jam. Lately, we'd been working on my two best songs to burn onto a demo CD that I had special plans for.
"First two hours this afternoon are open," Dad told me when I arrived. "But don't just mess around. Use the time right."
"Yeah, we will," I said, punching up Tran's phone number. In a few minutes, both guys were there, and we got right to work.
After doing a sound check, I told them, "Soon as we finish this demo, I'm sending it to a bigshot radio guy named Dirk Sutro."
"Never heard of him, " said Tran.
"Yeah, well, every night during the week, he does this show called, 'The Lounge,' and a couple times each week he'll put on some national artist, some old-school jazz guy, maybe, or this new alt-rock group just breaking out, who'll come in and do interviews and play live music right there in the radio station." I paused a beat. "Someone new like us, carnalitos. I'm serious."
"Dream on," said Lil Lobo. He rolled his shoulders, which were made more massive by his sleeveless T-shirt. "It doesn't happen like that. We're new, all right. So new, we don't even have a name yet."
Tran leaned forward on the arm of the overstuffed sofa and strummed three heavy-metal chords. "Don't listen to him, brah," he shouted. Tran liked to use different voices and accents. "Send the man da kine CD! Do it now, brah! For you, for me."
"I'm talking," I said, nodding strongly. "Look, we go on the show, introduce our new sound to the whole world, become Dirk Sutro's next discovery, and we launch our career!"
Then my dad popped in and told us we'd better get cracking and stop wasting studio time. Everyone jumped. "Yeah, yeah," I said. "Just had to give these guys a pep talk."
But Lil Lobo paused for a reality check. "Papa Ramos," he started, "what do you think about your son's big idea, sending a CD to that radio show guy and everything?"
Dad only grinned. I knew his take on the hardcore music biz, and he was nice enough just to shrug, lift his eyebrows, and say, "Never know." But then he left the room. My dad was like that. I mean, after all, he grew up in the punk rock days when independent bands were the only true artists, and to make a splash on the commercial side, you had to sell your soul to the big label studios and churn out la-la music. But he was cool about not spreading any of his negative views to the other guys.
I picked up my horn and played a bluesy riff into the air.
Da-dee-dee, da-dump! Doo-do, doo-do. Da-dee-dee, da-dump!
"You guys," I said, waving them close. Then I lowered my voice, so they'd have to pay better attention. "Don't laugh, but at our same age, Wynton Marsalis was already soloing with the New Orleans Philharmonic. I mean, sure, he was a little ahead of where we're at, but we'll get there." Then I pinged the bell of my horn with my fingernail. "You might say I'll be leading the charge. Into the future."
Tran "who-hooed" loud and long. Lil Lobo only huffed.
"Yeah," he said, rising up. "And I might say, you don't know what the heck you're leading us into, General Custer."
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